May 16, 2019 - We're so used to incorporating external data to inform our design. "Which feature wins out in A/B testing? Are we getting smiley faces or frowny faces on the Likert Scale feedback widget?" The Data+Creativity guest speaker this month invited us to turn inward. Devin O’Bryan explained how we can use Emotional Intelligence as a catalyst for incredible design.

Devin O'Bryan is Design Lead for IBM Watson Studio's Modeler offering. For over 5 years, he has been co-creating within IBM IoT, IBM Corporate HR, IBM Design’s Global Education & Activation Team (with programs like Design Bootcamp and Designweek), as well as building and maintaining the intensive, award-winning Maelstrom design internship program from scratch. More recently, he served as Creative Director for IBM’s internal incubator known as Project Whitespace.

One of the most compelling examples of using emotional intelligence in design was a pilot app for a counseling group for middle schoolers. To continue to get funding, the counseling group needed data that showed what affect their services were having on the students. Devin’s team helped turn feedback collection from a long paper survey with challenging vocabulary into an app that supported a calming-breath exercise and captured the feelings of students with just a few swipes of a finger.

Join us for our next Data+Creativity meetup on June 27 at 6pm at the new Exaptive office at 124 NW 12th Street, in the Oklahoma City Innovation District. NASA ISS Payload Communications Manager Penny J. Pettigrew will share how researchers and astronauts collaborate to collect experimental data.